Chicken Feed

In talking to an acquaintance the other day about broken beer bottles on the street, we reminisced of the bad old days when we used to collect beer and pop bottles at the roadside. Even at the 2 cents return rate, a person could soon accumulate the price of a movie. Whether the price of movies has made this practice redundant, or the effort of gathering returnable bottles is not worth the refund, it seems that many people get more of a charge from tossing the empties onto the pavement. The current deposit / return on bottles is considered chicken feed by the younger set.

It is bad enough that there is no respect for money, but the environment suffers from this wasteful habit. Our modern auto tires will withstand most bottle debris but bicycle tires are not that tough and a sudden bottle-deflation can land one on one’s head. Bare feet are even more vulnerable, although not to many of us walk the pavement in our bare feet. Broken bottles at the beach are a greater hazard, especially for young feet that have not yet developed hardened corn-pads.

Another sign of the times is that some people now consider anything less than a quarter as chicken feed. Have you seen pennies, nickels and dimes lying on the ground around kiosks? Some people are simply throwing the small change away, rather than carrying all that weight in their pockets or purses. With this attitude, I cannot see these people ever looking under the sofa cushions for a cache of coins after Dad has his nap. I am not sure that my dad did not “accidentally” drop some pennies on our old couch just to give us the thrill of acquiring this instant wealth. I suppose I could try leaving some loonies or toonies around, but I suspect my wife would get them long before my grandson could discover a hidden treasure of coins. At least the devaluation of coins has reduced the pirate trade on the high seas.

For those people too wealthy to keep their chicken feed change, you could always drop the change into any of the many charity boxes found at almost every checkout counter. ‘Many a mickle maks a muckle’, as my Scottish friend is wont to say on too many occasions. I think that means that a few pennies will accumulate into a few dollars if you save them.

Speaking of chicken feed brings me back to Air Canada and Jazz. I have lamented about the miserly practice of no longer giving passengers a candy to relieve air pressure changes (and to mollify them for over-paying for the service). Surely it saves Air Canada a muckle. But on the last two Jazz flights, the passenger service personnel have run out of that chicken feed they package as snacks. Actually, I think it is a product from Purina with sesame seeds added for flavour.

It surely does not take a degree in Mathematics to count the number of seats in a CRJ and then count the number of packages of chicken feed. One per paying customer. The directive from head office to divide that number by two should be ignored. I wonder if this new policy of reducing the cost of chicken feed is tied into the over-booking policy used by Air Canada? On second thought, maybe it is a problem of new math, since the company seems not to understand that one paying customer should have one seat and one package of Purina.

It is very disconcerting to drive to Pearson only to be told that the seat you paid for a month in advance has been sold to someone else. (I now drive to Toronto instead of taking the connecting flight since it takes about the same amount of time and $300.00 less than flying from North Bay.) Maybe that over-booked person got the chicken feed to keep them happy until the next flight.

Wait, I just figured it out! If you pre-book your seat, for a small nominal fee, you get to sit at the front of the aircraft, away from the whining jet engines on the tail. The people at the front get served first, before the Purina stock is depleted. I suppose the ten dollars Air Canada wants to reserve your seat is just chicken feed to them. I wonder how many wine bottles that will require me to return to the Beer Store…

Of course, there is always WestJet who let you reserve a large seat with your own video at no charge. I wonder if they have any of those chicken feed snacks?